SIDEBAR-The Great Wall of Jakarta

JAKARTA, Dec 22(Reuters) - Two weeks after his narrow win in
Indonesia's presidential election in July, Joko Widodo, though
still months away from taking office, jump-started an effort to
save Jakarta from drowning.

Minutes of a July 25 meeting with city officials and
ministers from the outgoing administration show that Widodo
endorsed the most ambitious feature of a plan that had been on
the drawing boards for nearly two years: a "Great Sea Wall" in
the shape of Indonesia's national symbol, the Garuda bird of
Hindu mythology.

The private sector would be "the main actor" in financing the
Great Sea Wall, whose total cost could rise to $40 billion over
three decades. Widodo wanted the group to quickly set a
ground-breaking date.

Outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, wanting a
signature achievement to burnish the legacy of his
administration, obliged him. The Great Sea Wall was launched on
Oct. 9 - two weeks before Widodo was sworn in.

The centerpiece of the plan will be an outer seawall built on
reclaimed land several miles out in Jakarta Bay, according to a
final version of the Master Plan reviewed by Reuters.

A "Waterfront City," with office towers, hotels and luxury
housing, will be built atop the seawall complex, covering up to
10,000 acres - nearly half the size of Manhattan. Selling real
estate on the Giant Sea Wall would be the main financing vehicle
for the wall itself, which would be completed by 2022.

Meeting that deadline "will be one of the most challenging
hydraulic civil works that has been carried out worldwide," the
Master Plan says.

The first phase of the project is a $2 billion, 20-mile inner
seawall now being built just behind an existing wall that is
crumbling as it sinks into the sea. This first phase, which is
supposed to be completed by 2018, will pay for new pumping
stations and raise the level of riverbank dikes throughout the
city.

One of the most challenging features of the plan is to
convert Jakarta Bay into a reservoir enclosed by the outer Giant
Sea Wall. New pumping stations will pour water in the reservoir
from the rivers and canals now stagnating below sea level in the
city.

Planners envision the reservoir one day becoming a
sustainable source of drinking water for the city. But first,
Jakarta would have to build massive wastewater treatment and
water purification plants. Until that happens, Jakarta's rivers
and canals, among the world's most polluted, would spew filthy
water into the bay.

That scenario is one of the main criticisms of the Waterfront
City. Sceptics "are afraid that it would turn into a giant
septic tank behind the Giant Sea Wall," said Victor Coenen,
Indonesia chief of Witteveen+Bos, the Dutch engineering and
consulting firm that helped design the Giant Sea Wall project.

Acting Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama is one
of them. "I honestly have doubts about" the Giant Sea Wall, he
told an audience of hydrologists on Oct. 31. "Flushing the mud
will be very problematic."

Corruption, endemic in Indonesia, will also be "a real
challenge" for what would be one of Indonesia's biggest-ever
infrastructure projects, the governor said.

Jakarta will need to assess the Giant Sea Wall against "a
range of options to see if it makes economic sense," said Ashvin
Dayal, managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation in Asia,
which is funding a number of climate resilience projects in the
region. Giant dikes can "create a fail-safe mentality."
(Reporting by Bill Tarrant; edited by John Blanton.)